Mansfield Training School and Hospital

Mansfield Training School and Hospital is a historic medical campus in Connecticut containing numerous buildings built in Greek Revival style during the early 1900s. The property spans a large area with more than 50 structures distributed across the grounds, creating an expansive institutional complex.

The facility began in 1860 as a school for people with intellectual disabilities and grew significantly when it merged with another state institution for people with epilepsy in 1917. This joining of two institutions created one of the state's largest medical complexes for residential care.

The names given to this place over time show how society's understanding of disability and care changed across generations. The layout and design of the buildings reveal the thinking that shaped how people lived and were treated within these walls.

Most of the buildings on this site are not open to visitors, and public access to the grounds is limited. The University of Connecticut has managed a significant portion of the property since 1994, and visiting requires making arrangements in advance or participating in special tours.

At its height during the 1960s, this complex employed hundreds of staff members and housed a residential population in the thousands. The scale reveals how much these institutions shaped the local economy and community life in ways most people today no longer remember.